How about a little cultural info? Where are you, how's the weather been and do you and your neighbor use a lawn service or apply weed-and-feed?

tj

Ive tried to add a previous post, but for some reason I cannot edit it in.

So in addition to the above...

Last season, an improperly diluted commercial HERBICIDE was added to the perimeter of the yard and garden beds. Pretty quickly I lost quite a few plants that came with the home and 12+ inches of grass. I feared that this year, the established plants in my garden beds (added by myself last season) had worked their roots low enough to reach residue. This is just a guess on my part. Partly because new plants are unaffected, and partly because the existing perennials came up healthy and growing vigorously. Ie. the spirea was nothing but a rooted cutting planted early last fall.

As an attempt to find answers, I had a landscaping company come out. However, all I received was a note with a bid to mow and a ps that our trees had anthracnose.

Another post to a neighborhood app, thinking others in the area may have similar problems, resulted in an guess that it could be ants. (These were removed with a homemade borax solution).

Unfortunately, these answers still leave me wondering what exactly I'm dealing with, and how to remedy.

If I haven't bored you enough... Here's one last note...

Almost all of my plants are sentimental. Being on a very limited budget, I have landscaped by either propagation from family and friends plants, or received them as gifts. I'm very new to gardening so the propagation of these plants required a lot of learning, time, and patience over the last 2 years. So not only am I trying to avoid ripping everything out and replacing them... But I've grown quite attached to my humble beginnings.

Any and ALL advice will be greatly appreciated.

I'm in 6a, ridiculously hot, and yes.

I will add that in the spring, as the perennials are emerging, I loosen the surrounding soil a bit, add a layer of brown paper bags, and then top with fresh mulch after removing the old.

I water almost daily at night and typically just the bases vs the entire plant. Every so often, I will overhead water.

dig a small hole.. 3 to 4 inches down.. and FIND OUT if moisture is getting down into the root zone ... especially under the paper bags.. see if they are breaking down ..

the lawns look like they are nearly in drought ... so i am wondering.. if you are watering properly.. deeply .. into the root zone ...

im not putting much stock in the pesticide idea ...

ants are usually not an issue ...

but i will ask again.. where are you.. z6 is about half the US and wildly divergent ... big city name ...

how new is the cement in the first pic

when you basically get to august.. and you have leaf discoloration .. a history of heat .. and droughted lawn... water has to be a primary issue ... and though stressed plants can attract all kinds of problems ... you cant get anywhere.. is yo dont address the root of the problem .. water.... <<<=== see what i did there.. lol ...

and.. even if you perfect water... those leaves arent going to recover ... you would look to new growth.. to see if it is growing properly ...

ken

Thank you so much for the response!

I dug down and there is a slight dampness to the soil. Guessing last nights watering?

I'm in St. Louis, MO county.

And what may look like drought is actually the lawn recovering from my dumb-dumb roommate spraying undiluted pesticide last year. After attempting to overseed the lawn and repair the damaged areas with no success, I took plugs (I had dug out a large area for a swimming pool) and transplanted them to the bare perimeters. Unfortunately, none took. Initially it looked hopeful, but did not take.

Excuse the cow skull. He's out getting that sun bleached look ;)

Edit*

Oh my! I've misused the word pesticide when I meant to say herbicide.

And even worse... It was commercial.

I see many people on these forums with the same problems and they all use that dyed mulch. Paper bags have their own chemicals, too. Remove all the mulch stuff and see if there's an improvement.

A herbicide is a pesticide :-))

It is doubtful that you are still experiencing herbicide residue........most will breakdown into harmless components after just a few days to a week or two in the soil or exposed to sunlight. There are some that are more persistent but are generally not available for use by homeowners.

It is not a disease problem - most plants diseases are very host specific and do not spread throughout the garden. That leaves cultural issues - soil, watering practices and weather or climate. Given the information you provided so far, I'd guess watering combined with hot summer weather. It is very unlikely that you would need to water on a daily basis for anything that has been planted more than a few weeks. Depending on your soil and how well it drains, you might be applying too much with a daily watering or too little by not allowing the water to run long enough or penetrate deeply. The mantra for watering a garden is low and slow and infrequently.....maybe once or twice a week at most.

ps: you never need to remove any mulch.....you just add to it as necessary. And ants are not an issue unless they are farming aphids. They do not eat plants.

Paper bags do not have harmful chemicals that could cause what you are seeing. Other than possibly blocking water until they break down, they will do no harm at all.

I'm curious what the herbicide was though. No idea? If it was applied by pros it is possible it was one of the persistent ones (chlorpyralid or picloram).